


If Luck is a Lady, then I must be a Fool

by tatersalad5001



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Darkness, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, KHUX - Freeform, POV Second Person, Union Cross, i have no idea really how else to tag this, mentions of gambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 15:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13460739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatersalad5001/pseuds/tatersalad5001
Summary: You've fought for the light, to protect the light, for almost two years now. The longer you keep going, the less sure you are about all this. You're not fond of the light's ways anymore. Its gambling nature has made you powerless while continuing to throw competitions your way, pretending you have a chance.You aren't sure why you're here anymore.





	If Luck is a Lady, then I must be a Fool

You were a keyblade wielder. In the future, long after now, this is a position that will mean something, but now, not so much. There were thousands upon thousands of others just like you. You divided into unions, fought over light, and maintained balance. You traveled to many different worlds for this purpose, even if they were only illusions created by prophecy. Your abilities were determined by medals you collected over time and during your journeys. The medals you collected were mostly determined by luck, or some other kind of outside force. Therefore, your abilities, skills, usefulness to your party and your union were based on luck.

And you. You were unlucky.

This system was unbalanced; you found this out fast once it started. There was only one actual strategy at a time to be implemented, in order to stand a chance. You, as a fairly decent strategist, recognized these pretty fast when they appeared. Through various rumors and channels, you were able to pick up your own slack if you misjudged any new medals. These strategies, the only strategy to use once they were available, required very specific medals. As time went on, as the strategy changed, the medals required become more and more rare, until only luck could help you.

And you. You were unlucky.

Parties had a distinct advantage over fighting alone; you were glad to be part of yours. One of these advantages was that party members could share some of their abilities one another as the last attack in your combo. You had good, useful medals to share once. Medals that were helpful, powerful, useful and appreciated. Then they were outdated. They were still your best, but everyone had better. You thought it was bad then. Then, the EX medals came.

Kairi EX. Illustrated Xion EX. Uncle Scrooge, who might as well have been an EX. These were the only three medals that could provide a good strategy now. Everything else was both outdated and outclassed. Nothing else compared. Your entire party had at least one each, probably two.

Well, your entire party except you, that is.

Most of your party shared them, as if it were a consolation. They probably didn’t realize these medals were useless at the end of your combo. You were better off with a hard hitting medal, rather than a stat booster. You knew they had good intentions, but at times it almost felt like they were mocking you, showing off their possessions you would never have. Sometimes you were almost…jealous? Upset? That wasn’t right of you. That wasn’t good. You pushed it away, said nothing, and moved on. It didn’t matter, you still had good shared medals you could use. You were thankful.

Union leaders flooded you with events. They became harder and harder. Suddenly, you couldn’t accomplish objectives. Even faster, you couldn’t even finish the quests. When teaming up with other keyblade wielders, you barely seemed to offer any help with the best strategies you could make of what you had. Instead, it felt like you slowed your teammates down. More medals were handed out to the powerful, to those who didn’t need them, and you got nothing. You were still unlucky.

You tried to hold onto the positives. Tried to hold onto the good things. You were still powerful, if a bit slower than the others to get there. You had good medals you cherished, that got you through hard times. You were a survivor, able to hold it out with the best of them if needed. You had options. It could’ve been worse.

It got worse.

Events seemed to become impossible. Whoever was putting them together stopped throwing you a bone long ago. Seeing how little damage you could do compared to everyone else was discouraging, frustrating. The shared medals of your comrades, medals you didn’t have but couldn’t help you as shared medals, now felt as if they were outright mocking you. You didn’t have a single EX medal to your name, besides a useless freebie you had better alternatives for. And the worst part was, you’d had a chance. If you hadn’t spend all your jewels chasing an impossible Kairi EX when it came out, you could’ve been able to get a slightly more possible Illustrated Xion EX. That one was on you for being unable to predict the future, you supposed. Along with the poor luck.

All you could do was save for a guarantee and pray the light hadn’t yet abandoned you.

Rumors of attacks from a dark Chirithy, a Nightmare Chirithy, reached your ears. Once, it even appeared to you. You almost hoped it’d burn down this whole system before scolding yourself for entertaining these thoughts from the darkness.

One day, you sat down and examined your medal collection. You’d come pretty far. HD Ventus, a favorite of yours, almost had a maxed out special attack. The names and faces on most of these medals were unfamiliar to you and meant nothing to you. Others you had met in illusions. You paid no mind to it just the same. It didn’t matter who the people on the medals were. They were all you had just the same.

A medal in your peripheral vision glinted in the sun. You picked it up. It was…Reversed. These medals showed up time to time, but they were forces of darkness. The Unions insisted to stick to the light forces, Upright medals. This one in particular was maxed out in every way, despite you never using it. It still couldn’t hold a candle to the EX medals you lacked. But, against your better judgement…maybe it could help? Surely one medal wouldn’t be a big deal.

The resulting blast of darkness against a particularly strong Heartless made your teammates turn their heads to stare. It hadn’t been particularly powerful, barely put a dent into the creature compared to anyone else. Yet, the darkness drew attention. You felt ashamed. Slowly, you tried to creep away. This didn’t help, so instead you ran.

You were supposed to maintain balance, to fight for the light, and somehow convinced yourself darkness could help you. Your Chirithy pulled you into a hug once you stopped running.

You thought of your Union leader, Ava. Her message that insisted unions should work together, not fight. A message that inspired you to join her union in the first place, soon after you first held your keyblade in your own hands.

You thought of the friends you’d made ever since. Most of them had disappeared by now. Nightmares about them had been ripping you apart for months.

You thought about how the system you lived in offered you nothing, no help, no way to catch up. You were good with strategies and theories, but had no means of carrying them out.

Perhaps this would all be easier to handle if you weren’t constantly competing. Competing against unions, against parties, against individual wielders. This only served to remind you of your failures. You’d fallen lower and lower in the rankings. At some point, you’d stopped trying.

Your bad luck haunted you. Your remaining friends’ good luck tormented you. It felt like the light was abandoning you.

And…you hated it. All of it.

Yards away, you could see the Nightmare Chirithy standing there, watching you, and you made the connection. This Chirithy was born out of you. Out of the darkness you hadn’t even noticed you’d been repressing. This Chirithy that had been carrying out wishes you couldn’t let yourself even think about.

Was all of this worth it?

No, you decided.

That’s when your heart fell into darkness, and you close behind it.

* * *

When you wake up, everything is different.

You don't know where you are, you've never seen this world before. And yet, you have; you know everything about it. It's the Castle That Never Was, in the World That Never Was. You're still in the Realm Between, but for the first time, you're aware that you have actually, truly traveled to a different world. Someone in a black coat introduces themself as Xehanort, and welcomes you to the darkness.

So, this is darkness.

Some part of you is aware that a long, long time has passed since the last thing you remember. No part of you is sure how long, but you look at this old man in front of you, and you're certain you've been around longer than he has. He leads you somewhere where others are waiting. They're all him, Xehanort. The Xehanort in front of you introduces as the thirteenth member of some organization, as a thirteenth vessel. And as he says this, you know that you're also one of them. You're still who you were before, of course, but now, you are also Xehanort. The next time you look in the mirror, you find your eyes glowing a bright yellow as opposed to the dull green color they had before. Your formerly light-colored hair has brightened itself to a soft white. The rest of you, of course, looks the same as ever.

In time, you realize that your keyblade no longer is coming to your aide. Starlight is gone to you, along with all the other forms your keyblade took. You aren't sure if this is because your heart's no longer worthy for it after falling into darkness, or if you just don't have a heart at all anymore. (Briefly, you wonder if your keyblade was just as much an illusion as the worlds you used to visit while you were still fighting on the side of light. You're quickly assured that that wasn't the case.) You still have all your medals, but they are now useless to you without your keyblade; you keep them out of sentimentality, and no one objects. Your new 'party', this Organization XIII, assures you that soon you will be able to use a new keyblade, a different one. Xehanort's keyblade. Until then, a different weapon may make itself available to you. Its abilities, shape, and use, they tell you, will be a reflection of yourself, your personality. At this point in time, you find yourself unable to summon this weapon, either.

Thus, in the mean time, you make do with magic. You can use magic without your medals, and you master the basic spells again easily. Everything from basic offense to basic defense to even healing. Fire magic, it seems, comes even more naturally to you than the others, though it doesn't take long for you to master all of these basic spells. However, you find you have another form of magic dancing at your fingertips as well. And, when you realize this, you laugh, because it seems darkness has graced you where light cursed you. You have a form of luck magic up your sleeve now, now working in your favor rather than against it. Your magic gives you good luck, lets you more easily dodge attacks from opponents and more easily find and strike your opponents weak spots. Your opponents, on the other hand, have trouble striking you, and, when they do, they deal much less damage. This magic is heightened, was perhaps awakened, by your own ability and experience in strategies and tactics. As you learn more powerful magic, your newfound good luck only makes you more powerful.

You were never this powerful with the light. And, now, with this power you can truly fight for and attain balance between light and darkness. This is the more sensible side to be on anyway, in terms of balance: so many people fight on the side of light, and few choose to embrace the darkness. You're happy with your decision.

One day, you're off on another world on assignment. The assignment itself is nothing important, it'll go quick and easy. But, in the middle of your mission, you're interrupted by a boy.

Part of you recognizes this boy. He's a fighter, he's a nuisance, he's a failure, he's delayed and defeated the Organization's plans before. He's dull and ordinary, defined only by his connections to other people. His name is Sora.

"You must be the thirteenth member of the Organization!" Sora calls out. The hood of your black coat is up, he's standing behind you. He can't see your face but he seems able to tell from your height that you're not one of the other members of the Organization he's dealt with before.

"Good guess," you answer. You turn to face him and pull back the hood of your coat.

Now he can see you clearly. He takes a step back, an eyebrow raised. "Who...are you?" he asks. "Why don't I know who you are?"

He must've assumed he would recognize everyone in the Organization, that he would know everyone. Bad guess, this time.

You smirk at him. "There's so much you don't know, there's so little you understand. Do you really think everything in this story revolves around you?"

**Author's Note:**

> khux is a mess of a game these days and the main reason i'm really sticking around is the main story
> 
> with my frustration in this game, which in my headcanon i pass along to my keykid, i realized i could combine the story of my keykid with the story of an oc, and, here we are.


End file.
